Nine years and three charge sheets later, the Central Bureau of Investigation continued to follow the money trail into the ₹3,727 crore AgustaWestland chopper deal, with a specific focus on politicians and government officials who benefitted, investigators said.
The central agency last month filed a supplementary charge sheet naming former defence secretary, Shashi Kant Sharma and four Indian Air Force (IAF) officers for allegedly favouring the Anglo-Italian firm in the controversial contract in 2010. The first two charge sheets were filed in September 2017 – it named former IAF chief SP Tyagi, his cousins and middleman Christian Michel James among others — and September 2020 ( against middleman Rajiv Saxena and companies that facilitated the movement of kickbacks ).
One of the investigators, who asked not to be named said: “Our probe will now focus on the money trail to beneficiaries in the government, as suggested in the alleged bribe note prepared by Michel”.
Asked why CBI has taken nine years to find the actual beneficiaries of the bribes – the case was registered in March 2013, this officer said, “We have already provided details of transfers through companies in our first two charge sheets. A lot of bribes were allegedly paid in cash, which takes time to corroborate.”
